There has been a continuing development of low power electronics for compact systems, such as portable computers, televisions, and a number of other electronic devices. Generally speaking, compact systems cannot afford large power supplies and therefore the electronics in such compact systems must be efficient and low power, so as to reduce the size of the power supplies.
There are attendant problems in creating efficient, low power electronics. For example, wasteful power dissipation can be minimized by the use of reduced power supply voltages; however, noise margins must be maintained to ensure compatibility with other circuitry and meet pre-existing specifications. Therefore, the reduction of power supply voltages incurs a compatibility issue with other standard voltage level electronics.
In particular, previous 5 Volt components are being replaced by equivalent components operating at lower source voltages. With lower operating voltages there are additional demands on driver circuits to provide adequate signal swing for maintaining proper device noise margins. This results from the fact that lower source voltage devices have less voltage to use in maintaining noise margin.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an efficient voltage elevation method and apparatus for booting and DC conditioning to enable low voltage electronic drivers to maintain proper noise margins, despite lower operating voltages. Such a circuit should have a modest number of components to be implemented with minimal design effort.